Come Not Between the Dragon and His Wrath¹
Making peace with my addiction to rage and its serendipitous surrender
“I would not give a fig for the simplicity this side of complexity; but I would give my life for the simplicity on the other side of complexity.” — Oliver Wendell Holmes
“All happy families are alike; each unhappy family is unhappy in its own way.” — Leo Tolstoy, Anna Karenina
“I learned to recognise the thorough and primitive duality of man; I saw that, of the two natures that contended in the field of my consciousness, even if I could rightly be said to be either, it was only because I was radically both.” — Robert Louis Stevenson, Jekyll and Hyde
Anticipation
It’s hot. I’m standing in swim trunks on the concrete apron surrounding a swimming pool, gazing at the water. I can tell it’s cold.
I know I’ll go in.
I know I’ll put off going in.
I know it will feel good. I know at first it won’t feel good. Then, after a time, it will feel good.
That moment before you jump in. That pause. You haven’t committed. You could turn back. You know you won’t. The dread. The subtler thrill of anticipation. It’s going to happen, isn’t it? A last moment of safety…
